[edit] 0-9

1RR

Voluntary (or sometimes ArbCom-imposed) one-revert rule.

[edit] A

Admin

Short for Administrator. A user with extra technical privileges for "custodial" work on Diyinfo - specifically, deleting and protecting pages, and blocking users.

Also used: Sysop.

AfC

The Articles for creation page where unregistered contributors can post details of articles they want created. Only relevant while article creation by anonymous users is disabled.

AfD

The Articles for deletion page. The AfD of an article refers to the discussion wherein Diyinfoians consider whether an article should be kept or deleted.

AGF

Abbreviation for "assume good faith", a guideline whereby one should not assume that an unwanted or disputed edit was done maliciously.

AMA

Abbreviation for "Association of Members' Advocates", a advocacy scheme by and for Diyinfoians. It failed to achieve widespread acceptance and was closed down.

AN

Abbreviation for "Administrators' noticeboard", a discussion location for Diyinfo administrators

Anchor

An HTML term for code that lets you link to a specific point in a page, using the "#" character. You can use them to link to a section of a page, e.g. Help:How to edit a page#Links,_URLs.

ANI

Abbreviation for "Incidents", where Diyinfo administrators discuss issues which may or may not need urgent administrator attention

Anon

Also used: IP user.

Abbreviation for "anonymous user". This is what you are if you have not logged in.

AOTW

Abbreviation of Article of the week, the former appellation of Collaboration of the week.

ArbCom

Abbreviation for Arbitration Committee

Arbitration

The final step in the dispute resolution process.

Archive

A subpage of a Talk page to which some parts of the discussion are transferred, to reduce the size of the Talk page. Rarely, the term may refer to the Historical archive page, for outdated historical material.

Armwaving

Also, handwaving.

An assertion not supported by evidence; most frequently seen in articles for deletion discussions, when editors may assert that a subject is notable, but fail to make a convincing case. Such arguments are usually given less weight.

Article

An encyclopedia entry. All articles are pages, but there are also pages that are not articles, such as this one.

Astroturf

Used only as a verb, astroturfing refers to attempts at creating the impression of a grassroots movement by the use of sock puppets and meat puppets to make an idea, poll, article, or deletion discussion seem to have more support than it actually has; alternately, the practice of making entries on sites such as Diyinfo to make an idea seem to have more support. In effect, a technique for "stacking the deck".

Autofellatio

On Diyinfo, Autofellatio is connected to several issues, including censorship (by removing a photograph of the act that used to be on there) and vandalism (by inserting said photograph into user pages) and trolling (by igniting flamewars for or against the inclusion of said photograph). Due to this, and the term's otherwise obscurity, Autofellatio has become an internal Diyinfoian.

Autoconfirm

A newly registered user is still subject to some of the same restrictions as anonymous users - for example, inability to move articles or edit semiprotected pages, although some restrictions, such as the restriction on anonymous users creating pages, are lifted. When a user is autoconfirmed, these restrictions end. Currently a new user must wait four days to be autoconfirmed, and there is no minimum number of edits required.

[edit] B

Bad faith nomination

A bad faith nomination is the nomination of a page, or more pages (usually for deletion at AFD) for disingenuous reasons such as making a point or vandalism.

Ban

Banning is the extreme, last resort action by which someone is prevented from editing Diyinfo for a certain length of time, limited or unlimited. Typical reasons for banning include a long history of biased edits (violation of NPOV), persistent adding of incorrect or doubtful material, refusal to cooperate with others, or extreme incivility and threats. If someone is banned, their username is blocked, and any username or IP judged to be the same person can be blocked without any further reason.

Banner

A banner is a template that is placed across the top of an article's talk page or at the top of a category to indicate specific details relating to the article or category's maintenance. They are often specifically linked to a WikiProject to indicate that the article or category falls within the jurisdiction of that project, but may also be related to article maintenance or protection. "Banner" may also simply mean the administrator who bans a troublesome editor.

Barnstar

Barnstars are a light-hearted system of awards given to Diyinfoian editors by other editors to acknowledge good work or other positive contributions to Diyinfo. They take the form of an image posted to an editor's talk page, usually in the form of a five-pointed star. There are a wide variety of different types of barnstar, each indicating a different reason for the award having been given.

Be Bold

The exhortation that users should try to improve articles and fix mistakes themselves by editing, rather than complain about them.

BJAODN

Abbreviation for Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense, a now-inactive page. The verb, BJAODNed, refers to the act of something being posted on the page with that name, and was often used at Diyinfo namespace articles involving heavy user participation, such as the Reference desk or AfD/TfD pages.

Blanking

Removing all content from a page. Newcomers often do this accidentally. On the other hand, if blanking an article is done in bad faith, it is vandalism. If blanking is done to a vandalized brand-new page, it is maintenance, and the page will be deleted by an admin within a few hours if no dispute arises. Delete should be added to the blanked page to draw attention to it, rather than just blanking it. Newcomers often mistake blanking for deletion.

Block

Action by a sysop, removing from a certain IP-number or username the ability to edit Diyinfo. Usually done against addresses that have engaged in vandalism or against users who have been banned.

Boilerplate text

A standard message which can be added to an article using a m:template.

Bot

A program that automatically or semi-automatically adds or edits Diyinfo-pages.

Broken link

Also used: edit link, red link.

A link to a nonexistent page, usually colored red.

Broken redirect

Redirect to a non-existing page. Common opinion is that these should be removed.

Bureaucrat

A Diyinfo Administrator who has been entrusted with promoting users to sysops.

[edit] C

Cabal

Sometimes assumed to be a secretive organization responsible for the development of Diyinfo, the word is usually used as a sarcastic hint to lighten up when discussions seem to become a little too paranoid. Discussions involving the term may have links to NPOV issues, admin problems, or pretty much anything to do with the foundation of Diyinfo.

Cat

"Category" or "Categorize".

Category

Also used: cat

A category is a collection of pages automatically formed by the Diyinfo servers by analyzing category tags in articles. Category tags are in the form Category:Computers. The part after the ":" is the name of the Category. Adding a category tag causes a link to the category and any super-categories to go to the bottom of the page. As stated, it also results in the page being added to the category listing.

CfD

The Categories for discussion page (previously known as Categories for deletion)

Chatty

A term used for articles which seem to present their content in the manner of a casual conversation with the reader. Chatty articles may need cleanup.

Checkuser

An access level with which a user can see the IP addresses of logged-in users, usually to determine if someone is using sockpuppets to violate policy. Currently only granted to certain members of the Arbitration Committee and other trusted users.

Cleanup

The process of repairing articles that contain errors of grammar, are poorly formatted, or contain irrelevant material. Cleanup generally requires only editing skills, as opposed to the specialized knowledge that is more often called for by pages needing attention.

Climbing the Reichstag

A humorous way of indicating that an editor has over-reacted during an argument such as an edit-war in order to gain some advantage.

CNR

Also used: XNR

Acronym for Cross-namespace redirects.

COI

Acronym for Conflict of interest.

COIN

Acronym for Conflict of interest noticeboard.

Comment out

To hide from normal display whilst retaining the material for editors to see. This is done by inserting the characters at the end. These character strings are used to delimit comments in HTML code.

Community Portal

One of Diyinfo main pages. It can often be found on the sidebar (on the left side in most skins), and is a page that lists the collaboration of the week, outstanding tasks that need to be addressed, and several other useful bits of information and resources. The Community Portal is useful for picking an article or topic to work on or read.

Contribs

Short for contributions. These are the edits that a user has made.

Convenience links

Links to unofficial copies of reliable sources (not to the original publisher) in addition to a formal citation of the reliable source. Has the advantage over books, paid websites, and websites that need registration of easy accessibility. Sometimes disputed because of violations of copyright, linking to partisan websites, possible distortions or those reliable sources, or because it may contain comments on the reputable sources that other editors do not like.

Copyedit

A change to an article that only affects formatting, grammar, and other presentational aspects.

Copyvio

Also used: copyviol, and occasionally CV.

Copyright violation. Usually used in an edit summary when deleting copyrighted material added without complying with Diyinfo copyright verification procedures.

COTW

Collaboration of the week, an article needing improvement that is selected by vote to be the subject of widespread cooperative editing for a week.

'Crat

Short for Bureaucrat, used only occasionally.

Cross-namespace redirects

Also used: CNR, and occasionally XNR.

A redirect which links from one type of namespace to another. Examples include words in the article namespace which redirect to project pages in the Diyinfo namespace. Although they are not considered standard practice, some are created to facilitate searching, especially for new users.

Cruft

A term used to describe an article or group of articles which are too focused on a specific topic, covering it in too much detail. The term is often used as a suffix for terms such as Pokécruft (Pokémon-cruft) and Roadcruft (cruft articles about roads). Cruft articles are often on topics such as minor characters from television series, or very specific lists of songs (such as "List of songs which includes the word 'death' in the lyrics"). Cruft is often deleted or merged into other articles by the Diyinfo community.

CSB

WikiProject Countering systemic bias or, more rarely, an adjective for a topic of concern to the WikiProject, e.g. "This doesn't seem to be a CSB article." Systemic bias is the tendency for Diyinfo articles to be biased towards a regional view of things.

CSD

Criteria for speedy deletion, a policy detailing the circumstances when articles etc. can be removed from Diyinfo without discussion. Also lists the templates needed to nominate something for speedy deletion.

Cut and paste move

Moving a page by taking the text of the page, and putting it into the edit window for the second page. Generally considered worse than the 'move page' option, because it splits the page and its edit history. Cut and paste moves can be fixed by administrators.

[edit] D

db

An abbreviation for "delete because". Almost all templates that are used to request speedy deletion according to the procedure have this prefix (e.g., tl|db-advert, tl|db-nonsense, tl|db-band. It can also refer to Diyinfo database.

Data dump

To import material from outside sources into Diyinfo without editing, formatting and linking (wikifying). This is frowned upon by most Diyinfoians.

Dead-end page

Page that has no links to existing other pages, except interlanguage links. Special:Deadendpages lists them, but this function is disabled in some Diyinfo projects for performance reasons.

De-admin

See De-sysop.

De-bold

Also used: un-bold.

To remove a phrase's bold typeface, because it is not the first reference to the title or a synonym of the topic (which should be bold), or that it is not the topic of the article at all. Common situations when one would de-bold include: bold foreign words (should instead be italicized) and bold Wikilinks (which, according to current Manual of Style, should be plain).

Deorphan

To make a page no longer an orphan.

Deprecated

Techie-speak for "tolerated or supported but not recommended (i.e. beware: may well be on the way out)". The term is also used to refer to pages, templates or categories that have been orphaned or are no longer used. In non-technical English, the word means "deplored or strongly disapproved of".

De-sysop

Also used: De-admin.

Take away someone's sysop status. Used very rarely, in cases where someone has voluntarily elected to resign such status, or is judged to have misused their sysop powers.

Developer

A user who can make direct changes to the Diyinfo software and possibly also the database, usually being one of the MediaWiki developers or Diyinfo technicians. Technically it is the highest user access level, but Developer privileges are generally only used at request.

De-Wikify

Also used: Un-Wikify.

To remove (de-link) a wikification of an article. This can be done to remove

self-references or excessive common-noun Wikification (also known as "sea of blue").

Diff

The difference between two versions of page, as displayed using the Page history feature, or from Recent Changes. The versions to compare are encoded in the URL, so you can make a link by copying and pasting it - for instance when discussing a change on an article's talk page.

Disambig

See Disambiguation.

Disambiguation

Also used: dab, disambig.

The process of resolving the conflict that occurs when articles about two or more different topics have the same natural title.

Disambiguation page

A page that contains various meanings of a word, and refers to the pages where the various meanings are defined. In cases when there is a prevailing meaning of the term, disambiguation pages are named "subject (disambiguation)".

Double redirect

A redirect which leads to another redirect. Counterintuitively, this will not bring one to the final destination, so it needs to be eliminated by linking directly to the target redirect. Double redirects are generated when moving a page which has redirects leading to it.

Dupe

Short for a duplicate article. Often used when identifying a duplicate page that needs to be merged with another.

DYK

An abbreviation for Did you know.

Contents

Top · 0–9 · A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

[edit] E

EC

See Edit conflict.

Edit conflict

Also, rarely "edconf". Appears if an edit is made to the page between when one opens it for editing and completes the edit. The later edit doesn't take effect, but the editor is prompted to merge their edit with the earlier one. Edit conflicts shouldn't be confused with edit wars.

Edit creep

The tendency for high quality articles to degrade over time. Articles usually achieve good article or featured article recognition because a small core of people knew the subject well and researched it carefully. Subsequently, new readers continue to alter the page. The average contribution may weaken the piece through bad copyediting, poor syntax, recitation of popular misconceptions, or giving undue weight to a subordinate topic.

Editcountitis

A humorous term for having an unhealthy obsession with the number of edits that a person makes to Diyinfo, usually applied to one trying to make as many edits as possible. Often cited on requests for Adminship regarding people who judge people on sheer edit count rather than personal merit.

Edit link

See Broken link.

Edit summary

The contents of the "Summary:" field below the edit box on the "Edit this page" page.

Editor

Also used: contributor and user.

Anyone who writes or modifies articles in Diyinfo. That includes you.

Edit war

Also used: revert war.

Two or more parties continually making their preferred changes to a page, each persistently undoing the changes made by the opposite party. Generally, an edit war is the result of an argument on a talk page that could not be resolved. Edit wars are forbidden and lead to blocks.

External link

Also used: ext. ln, ext lk, or extlink.

A link to a website not owned by Diyinfo. The alternatives are an internal link, wikilink or free link within Diyinfo.

[edit] F

FA

Featured article, an article that has been selected as representing "the best of Diyinfo". Articles become featured articles when a FAC gets consensus for promotion.

FAC

Featured article candidate, an article that has been proposed for consideration to be featured as one of the best in Diyinfo.

Fancruft

See Cruft.

FARC

Featured article removal candidate, a featured article whose "featured" status is considered for removal, either because the featured article criteria or the article itself changed.

FIST

Free Image Search Tool, which will look for free images for articles, either manually listed or by category

Forest fire

A flame war which spreads, seemingly uncontrollably, beyond the pages where it began into unrelated articles' talk pages. A forest fire becomes progressively more difficult for any user to keep track of. On Diyinfo, this is less of a problem than on other wiki's, due to well-established boundaries for user conduct, clear guidelines for article content, and a formal dispute resolution process.

Fork

A splitting of an entity to satisfy different groups of people - in Diyinfo, this can either mean a project-wide split, in which a group of users decides to take a project database and continue with it on their own site (which is perfectly legal under the GFDL, and one of an editor's least disputed rights), or the split of an article, usually to accommodate different POVs. The latter is often called a POV fork and generally regarded as highly undesirable.

FP

Featured pictures, a picture that has been selected as representing "the best of Diyinfo". Pictures become featured pictures when a FPC gets consensus for promotion.

FPC

Featured picture candidate, a picture that has been proposed for consideration to be featured as one of the best in Diyinfo.

Free link

A link pointing to another page within Diyinfo, by using the wiki markup double square-brackets. Sometimes they are referred to as wikilinks or internal links. Unless otherwise specified in a user's monobook.css, these links usually show up as blue if they are working and you haven't visited them before, red if they are broken, and purple if they are working and you have visited them before; note that they do not have the arrow symbol characteristic of an external link.

[edit] G

GA

Stands for good article.

Gadget

A gadget is a JavaScript tool that can be enabled from your Diyinfo preferences.

Gdanzig

An edit war over which of several possible names should be used for a place. The word is a portmanteau of Gdańsk and Danzig, the two names about which a venerable edit war ensued.

Geogre's Law

The law states that there exists a strong correlation between the lack of proper capitalization of a person's name in the title of a biographical article, and the failure of the subject of that article to satisfy the criteria for inclusion of biographies.

GFDL

[Free Documentation License]. Diyinfo articles are released under this license.

See also DIYinfo.org:Copyrights.

Ghits

"Google hits" - the number of successful searches for a particular word or phrase using the Google search engine. Sometimes used as a very rough assessment of notability on AFD. See also Google test.

Google test

Running sections or titles of articles through the Google search engine for various purposes. The four most common are to check for copyright violations, to determine which term among several is the most widely used, to decide whether a topic is sufficiently wanted to warrant an article or is simply engaging in vanity and to check whether a questionable and obscure topic is real (as opposed to the idiosyncratic invention of a particular individual).

See also Ghits

GPL

[General Public License]. Diyinfo is released under this license.

[edit] H

Hagiography

Wording that is excessively fulsome, adulatory or glowing in a biographical article, to the point of violating NPOV.

Handwaving

See: Armwaving

History

All previous versions of an article, from its creation to its current state. Also called page history.

Hopelessly POV

Describing an article which, in the opinion of some Diyinfoians, is so closely tied to a particular point of view as to be inherently in violation of Diyinfo policy and unable to be made neutral. Other Diyinfoians consider the accusation "hopelessly POV" as being merely an excuse to suppress certain points of view.

[edit] I

IANAL

An abbreviation for I Am Not A Lawyer, indicating that an editor is about to give their opinion on a legal matter as they understand it, although they are not professionally qualified to do so, and may not fully understand the law in question. May be generalized to other occupations, e.g. IANAA (administrator), IANAD (doctor).

IfD

An abbreviation for Images and media for Deletion.

Inclusionist

A user who is of the opinion that Diyinfo should contain as much information as possible, often regardless of presentation or notability. There are varying degrees of Inclusionism; radical Inclusionists vote "Keep" on every AfD they come across, while more moderate ones merely express their desire for a wide variety of topics to be covered, even if they do not fit the standard criteria for inclusion in Diyinfo, or if the articles in question have quality problems.

Infobox

A consistently formatted table which is present in articles with a common subject.

See also: taxobox.

Internal link

See free link.

ITHAWO

I thought he already was one. Used about people listed in 'admin' requests.

ITN

An abbreviation for in the news

[edit] J

Janitor

See Admin.

[edit] K

Kill / Kill with fire / Kill with a stick

Dysphemisms for "deleting" a page, expressing some disgust for the existence of the page.

[edit] L

Link

See Help:Contents#Links.

Link rot

Because websites change over time, many external links from Diyinfo to other sites cannot be guaranteed to remain active. When an article's links becomes outdated and no longer work, the article is said to have undergone link rot.

Listify

To delete a category and turn the contents into a list. This is shorthand for saying that "this group of articles would be better if presented as a list, rather than as a category."

Lk

Landmarks: Major landmarks

[edit] M

m

On the Recent changes page, m (lower case, bold) indicates a minor edit.

magic word

a symbol recognized by the MediaWiki software and which when seen in the non-commented text of the page, triggers the software to do something other than display that symbol, or transclude a page with that name, but instead to use the symbol directly.

Main Page

The page to which every user not specifying an article is redirected. The Main Page contains links to current events, presents certain articles (like a featured article of the day and links to Wikipedia's newest articles), and also serves as an entry point to browsing all articles by topic or other classification. Links to sister projects and other-language Wikipedias are also a prominent feature on the Main Page. Due to its high exposure, all content on the Main Page is protected.

Meat puppet

An account created only for the illegitimate strengthening of another user's position in votes or discussions. Unlike a sock puppet, the account is used by another person. Meat puppets are treated exactly like sock puppets in most cases, making the distinction between them largely academic.

Mediation

An attempt by a third party to resolve an edit war or other conflict between users. There exists an admin Committee which can do so on a more or less official basis as the penultimate step in the dispute resolution process.

MediaWiki

The software behind Diyinfo.

Compare with Wikimedia.

Meh

Common edit summary used for minor edits.

Merge

Taking the text of two pages, and turning it into a single page.

Mergist

A user who adheres to the principle of Mergism, which is a compromise between the Inclusionist and Deletionist principles. A Mergist is of the opinion that while many topics merit inclusion, not every topic deserves its own article, and tries to combine these "side" topics into longer, less specific articles.

Meta

A separate wiki ([1]) used to discuss general Wikimedia matters. In the past, this has been called Metapedia, Meta Wikipedia, Meta Wikimedia, and many other combinations.

Meta page

Page that provides information about Wikipedia. Meta pages are more correctly referred to as project namespace pages. Meta pages should not be confused with a page on Meta-Wikimedia.

Mirror

A website other than Diyinfo that uses content original to Diyinfo as a source for at least some of its content.

Mop

A term used to refer to administrator duties (compare Janitor). Often seen in the phrase to give someone a mop (i.e., to make someone into an administrator).

Move

Changing the name and location of an article because of a misspelling, violation of naming convention, misnomer, or inaccuracy. Involves either renaming the page or moving it and constructing a redirect to keep the original link intact.

Contents

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[edit] N

N

On the Recent changes page, N (upper case, bold) indicates a new page or article.

n/a

An abbreviation for new article, often used in edit summaries. Easily confused with the common non-Wiki use, "not applicable".

Namespace

A way to classify pages. Diyinfo has namespaces for articles, pages about Diyinfo (project namespace), user pages (User:), special pages (Special:), template pages (Template:), and talk pages (Talk:, Wikipedia talk:, and User talk:), among others.

Newbie test

Also used: newb test, noob test.

An edit made by a newcomer to Diyinfo, just to see if "Edit this page" really does what it sounds like. Newcomers should use the Sandbox for this purpose.

NN

frequently in lower case as nn

Found on comments at Articles for deletion, indicating that the article's subject is not notable enough for a Diyinfo entry.

nom

Short for "nomination," it is often found on Articles for deletion as part of the phrase Delete per nom, indicating a voter's assent to the main nomination for deletion.

NOR

The Diyinfo policy that No Original Research is allowed in citing sources in articles.

Notice board

Also used: noticeboard.

A page which acts as a forum for a group of users, who use it to coordinate their editing. A notable exception is the Administrators' noticeboard.

NPOV

Neutral point of view, or the agreement to present possibly subjective content in an objective, neutral, and substantiated manner, so as not to cause edit wars between opposing sides. As a verb, to remove biased statements or slanted phrasing. As an adjective, it indicates that an article is in compliance with Diyinfo's NPOV policy.

Null edit

A null edit is made when an editor opens the edit window of a document then re-saves the file without having made any text changes. This is sometimes done to change the functioning of templates (which require articles containing them to be edited in order for any changes to take effect).

[edit] O

Open tasks

A template that lists several more or less janitorial tasks that are pending or needed. It is found on the community portal as well as on many user pages. The term is also occasionally used within individual WikiProjects to refer to work which has been discussed but which still needs to be completed.

Open Ticket Request System

Refers to the people and software that surround the handling of email sent to Diyinfo.

Original research

In Diyinfo, original research (sometimes abbreviated OR) is material added to articles that has not been published already by a reputable source. Diyinfo is not the appropriate place to publish original research, nor can it be used for substantiation of article content.

Orphan

A page with no links from other pages. You can view lists of orphaned articles and images.

OTRS

Abbreviation for Open Ticket Request System.

[edit] P

Page

Any individual topic within Diyinfo; the web page without the top, bottom and side bars. Pages include articles, stubs, redirects, disambiguation pages, user pages, talk pages, documentation and special pages.

Patent nonsense

A humorous pejorative applied to articles that are either completely unintelligible or totally irrelevant.

Patrol

Recent changes patrol and/or New page patrol. May also be used as a synonym for "review closely".

PD

Material not presently under copyright and thus available for use without permission.

Peer Review

A request to have fellow Diyinfoians review and help improve an article. Diyinfo has a page specifically for posting such a request and offering up your work for review.

Permcat

A permanent category - that is, a category into which an article is assigned to aid reader navigation, as opposed to a temporary assignment relating to a process such as cleanup or stub sorting.

Per, Per Nom, Per X

A comment on a page such as RFA or AFD may be accompanied by the note "per nom", which means "for the reasons given by the nominator". Similarly, a comment may be noted "per X" where X is the name of one of the other commenters, or a reference to some page that explains the reasoning.

Personal attack

A comment that is not directed at content, but rather insults, demeans or threatens another editor (or a group of editors) personally, with obvious malice. To maintain a friendly and productive atmosphere, personal attacks are forbidden per Diyinfo policy and may be grounds for blocking in serious and/or repeated cases.

Phase III

A rewritten and improved version of the Phase II software. It was eventually renamed to MediaWiki. Diyinfo currently uses MediaWiki (see also Special:Version).

Phase IV

A dream proposal for the next generation of MediaWiki software made back when complete rewrites were in vogue. Development is now focused on incremental progress.

Piped link

A link where the text displayed in the article is not the name of the link target. Such links are created using the pipe character "|" e.g. Target article|Displayed text. The pipe trick is a software feature that generates the displayed text for the editor in certain circumstances.

POINT

"Thou shalt not deliberately skew any page, nor create or nominate for deletion any page, nor in any other way vandalize Diyinfo, in order to try to prove your point!" Also written as WP:POINT.

Pokémon test

A heuristic for assessing the relevance or legitimacy of prospective article topics, which holds that any topic more notable than the most obscure species of Pokémon may deserve a Diyinfo article.

POV

Point of view. Originally referred to each of many perspectives on an issue which may need to be considered and balanced in an encyclopedic article. Today, more often used as a synonym for "bias", as in "That reply was POV, not neutral".

POV warrior

An editor who aggressively distorts coverage of certain topics to suit his/her biases despite community norms of neutrality and the Diyinfo policy of NPOV.

Prejudice

As in, "delete without prejudice" and variations, based on the legal term.

Deletion without prejudice indicates that there's a problem with the present version of the article (e.g. lack of sources) and that recreation of the article is viable if that problem is fixed. Deletion with prejudice indicates that there's a problem with the subject of the article, and that it should not be recreated in any form (although deletion review can overturn this).

Process page

A wikispace page dedicated to discussion and (usually) voting on specific pages or users, or for similar administrative reasons. Examples include CFD, RFA, and AFD.

Prod

Proposed deletion. A process by which articles which do not qualify for speedy deletion but are able to be uncontroversially deleted can be removed from Diyinfo without going through a full AfD process. Can be used as both a noun and a verb (To prod an article).

Project namespace

The project namespace is a namespace dedicated to providing information about Diyinfo.

Proseline

From "prose" and "timeline": chronological list of events narrated in a prose form, usually a lot of paragraphs that begin with a date or time ("In February, 2008, 'proseline' was added to the Diyinfo glossary page..."). Usually occurs in articles about ongoing events where editors are adding information as it comes available. Generally seen as bad style that should be avoided.

Protected page

This term indicates a page that cannot be edited except by administrators, or in some cases, established users. Usually this is done to cool down an edit war.

Protologism

A word that is created and used in the hope that it will become widely used and an accepted part of the language. A successful protologism becomes a neologism.

The term protologism has been adopted as jargon for use within Wiki communities, but is not in common usage outside this context. "Protologism" itself can be considered either a protologism or neologism. Coined by Mikhail Epstein from Greek protos, first + Greek logos, word.

The Pump

Also used: VP.

A nickname for Village pump.

[edit] R

Random page

The Random page link is on the left of each page for most skins. It will take you to a Diyinfo article that is chosen by a computer algorithm without any deliberate pattern or meaning to the choice.

RC

An abbreviation for Recent changes

RC Patrol

A group of volunteer editors who examine Recent changes logs for vandalism and other undesirable edits.

Re-creation, also "recreation"

A posting either of the same or similar text of a deleted article by a new user, or of the same text or different text of a deleted article by the original creator.

Recent changes

A dynamically generated page (found at Special:Recentchanges) that lists all edits in descending chronological order. Sometimes abbreviated as RC. Recent changes are checked regularly by editors doing RC patrol, which means checking all suspicious edits to catch vandalism as early as possible.

Redirect

Also used: redir.

A page title which, when requested, merely sends the reader to another page. This is used for synonyms and ease of linking. For example, impressionist might redirect to impressionism.

Redlink

A wiki link to an article that doesn't exist shows up red.

Refactor

To restructure a document, usually applied to the ordering and summarizing of talk pages.

Reincarnation

A new user account created by a banned user to evade the block. See sock puppet.

Render

In the context of the World Wide Web, rendering is the operation performed by the user's browser of converting the web document (in HTML, XML, etc. plus image and other included files) into the visible page on the user's screen.

Repoint

To change the destination article of a redirect, either to avoid a double redirect or to change the redirect so that it leads to a more appropriate article. The term retarget is also frequently used.

Rescope

To change the subject matter of an article, a template or - most frequently - a category to one that is more acceptable for editorial or encyclopedic purposes. If by doing so the subject area is broadened, the term upscope is sometimes used.

Retarget

See Repoint.

Revert

An edit that reverses edits made by someone else, thus restoring the prior version.

Revert war

See Edit war.

RfA

Can mean request for adminship or request for arbitration, depending on the context. The latter is frequently abbreviated RfAr to avoid the ambiguity.

RfA Cliché #1

Sometimes used in support at "requests for adminship", to indicate that one thought the candidate already was an admin. See also ITHAWO.

RfAr

Means Request for arbitration.

RfC

Request for comment, part of the dispute resolution process. A request for comment is an informal process for soliciting input from Diyinfoians about a question of article content or a user's conduct.

RfD

The Diyinfo Redirects for deletion page.

RfM

Request for mediation, part of the dispute resolution process.

rm

Remove. Used in edit summaries to indicate that a particular piece of text or formatting has been deleted.

rmv

Remove vandalism. Used in edit summaries when good edits were made after vandalism, requiring the editor to sort out the vandalism, as opposed to a simple reversion. (See "rvv" below.)

Rogue admin

Accusatory term for a Diyinfo administrator, suggesting that the accused person systematically abuses their administrative access. Such accusations are rarely found to be justified or particularly productive.

Rollback

To change a page back to the version before the last edit. Sysops have special tools to do this more easily.

Rouge admin

A misspelling of "rogue admin" occasionally used by vandals and trolls. Now used jokingly by many Diyinfo administrators, usually to describe themselves performing actions which the affected users may not like (such as blocking vandals and deleting pages).

RS

Reliable sources; a guideline that articles should be based on reliable published sources.

rv

Revert. An edit summary indicating that the page has been reverted to a previous version, often because of vandalism.

rvt

Revert. See above.

rvv

Revert because of vandalism. See rv above.

[edit] S

s/word1/word2/

Replace word1 with word2. Used in edit summaries. It is a reference to the command for "find and replace" in computer languages such as sed and Perl. s/word1/word2/g means "replace all occurrences of word1 with word2" (g stands for "global").

Salt

(from "salt the earth") To delete an article and protect it against recreation. This is done when unwanted articles are repeatedly recreated.

Sandbox

A sandbox is a page that users may edit however they want. Though it is meant to help users experiment and gain familiarity with Wiki markup, the public sandbox is often filled with strange things and patent nonsense. In addition to the public sandbox, users may create private sandboxes on subpages of their user page,

Section editing

Using one of the '[edit]' links to the right of each section's title, one can get an edit window containing only the section of the page that's below the [edit] link. This makes it (hopefully) easier to find the exact spot where one wants to edit, and helps you avoiding an edit conflict. You can turn section editing off in your preferences under the "Enable section editing via [edit] links" option.

Self-link

A Wikilink contained in an article that points the reader to that same article. Such links are automatically displayed as strongly emphasized text rather than links, but the more complex case of a link which redirects to the same article is not, and should be de-wikified.

Self-ref

When used in terms like "no self refs", this refers to the guideline Avoid self-references whereby articles should generally not refer to the Diyinfo project directly or implicitly.

Self-revert

An editor self-reverts when he or she reverts or undoes an edit that he or she had previously made. This may be because the editor was merely making a test, or because the editor later realised his or her edit was faulty, or because he or she wishes to show good faith after a three-revert rule violation.

SfD

The Stub types for deletion page.

Sharpen cat

To place an article within a more specific category, e.g. placing a wood working article from Category:The Builder into Category:In The Workshop. Also, sh cat in edit summaries.

Sheep vote

A vote on Diyinfo which seems to be cast just to go along with the flow. E.g., on RfA, this can typically be a vote such as "Support because x, y, and z are supporting." The opposite is called a "wolf vote".

Shortcut

A redirect used within Wikispace to enable editors to get to a project page more quickly.

Skin

The appearance theme in Special:Preferences. Currently, seven are available: Chick, Classic, Cologne Blue, Monobook, MySkin, Nostalgia, and Simple.

Smerge

A contraction of "slight merge", sometimes used in Articles for deletion discussions. This is for when a topic deserves mention in another article, but not to the extent and detail that is already included (a partial merge and redirect).

Snap

Retargeting a double redirect to point to the ultimate target.

Snowball clause

Sometimes entries on process pages are closed early when it becomes obvious that they have "a snowball's chance in Hell" of passing the process. This removal is "per the Snowball clause". The verb "snowballing" is sometimes used for this action.

Sock or Sock puppet

Another user account created secretly by an existing Diyinfoian, generally to manufacture the illusion of support in a vote or argument. Also, particularly on AfD, a friend of an existing Diyinfoian who has created an account solely for the purpose of supporting that Diyinfoian in a vote (this special case is often called a meat puppet). It is not always possible to tell the difference.

Soft redirect

A very short article or page that essentially points the reader in the direction of another page. Used in cases where a normal redirect is inappropriate for various reasons (e.g. it is a cross-wiki redirect)

sp

Short for spelling correction. Used in edit summaries.

SPA

Short for Single Purpose Account. If that single purpose is disruptive (e.g. vote stacking, or attacking some user) the account tends to get indefinitely blocked.

Speedy

Abbreviation for Speedy delete (or "speedy rename" as appropriate). Can also be used as a verb; e.g., "I think the article should be speedied". "Speedy" on Diyinfo does not mean "now, immediately", but rather something that can be done without further discussion.

Speedy delete

Deletion of a page without prior discussion. Pages can be speedily deleted only under very specific circumstances which are normally preformed by Steward Administrators.

Speedy keep

The closing of a vote on a deletion wikispace page (like AFD) prior to the normal end of the voting period. This happens when the nomination has been faulty (e.g., a bad faith nomination) or when there is overwhelming evidence that the page should be kept (e.g., overwhelming support for keeping it, or a history of deletion attempts that have ended in the same way).

Split

Separating a single page into two or more pages.

Steward

An Administrator who has been empowered to change any user's status, including granting and revoking Administrator status and granting bureaucrat status.

Strike out

Placement of text in strikethrough (HTML <s></s>) tags. This is very rarely used in articles, but is relatively common in votes and discussions when a contributor changes his opinion. As not to cause confusion, the outdated comments are struck out (like this). Generally, one should strike out only one's own comments.

Stub

An article usually consisting of one short paragraph or less.

Subst'ing

Short for "substituting" a template; see Transclusion.

Subpage

A page connected to a parent page. You can only create subpages in certain namespaces. Do not use subpages in the main article space.

Sysop

See Admin.

Systemic bias

In Diyinfo terms, this refers to the preponderance of Diyinfo articles relating to subjects specific to English-speaking and/or Western countries, as opposed to those from the rest of the world. It may also refer to a bias for articles that may be of particular interest to those who have an affinity towards computers and the Internet, since they are more likely to edit Diyinfo.

Contents

Top · 0–9 · A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

[edit] T

Tag

In addition to its usual HTML meanings, a tag can simply mean a category or a template that will assign an article to a category (most often a stub template). "To tag an article" means to either add a category or a stub template.

Talk page

A page reserved for discussion of the page with which it is associated, such as the article page. Very confusingly, the link to a talk page is labelled "discussion". All pages within Diyinfo (except pages in the Special namespace, and talk pages themselves!) have talk pages attached to them.

Task force

A smaller group of editors in a WikiProject dedicated to a more specific field within the scope of the parent project. Task forces are located on WikiProject subpages. They generally have a less formal bureaucratic structure than full-fledged WikiProjects.

Taxobox

A type of infobox, a taxobox is a taxonomy table positioned at the right side of an entry for a species or organism (or for a genus or Family). Taxoboxes are also used for similar standardized tables.

Template

A way of automatically including the contents of one page within another page, used for boilerplate text, navigational aids, etc.

TfD

The Templates for deletion page.

Three-revert rule

A rule whereby no one is allowed to revert a single article more than three times in one day (with a few exceptions).

Tl

Short for "template". Also the name of a specific template, which provides a template link, i.e., links a page to a template without allowing the template's code to operate on that page.

top

On a user's list of contributions, (top) indicates that the article has not been edited by anyone else since the user last edited it.

Troll

A user who incites or engages in disruptive behavior (trolling). There are some people who enjoy causing conflict, and there are those who make a hobby of it. However, these are few in number and one should always assume good faith in other editors. Calling someone a troll in a dispute is a bad idea; it has an effect similar to calling someone a Nazi; no further meaningful debate is likely to occur.

Tyop

A cute misspelling of typo. Used as an edit summary when correcting typos.

[edit] U

Umbrella nomination

A nomination (e.g. on CfD) that contains several items (e.g. categories) which are normally nominated individually.

Un-wiki

Going against the character of a Wiki. Usually, saying that something is "un-wiki" means that it makes editing more difficult or impossible.

Upmerge

A term frequently used on categories for discussion and stub types for deletion, it means "merge into parent category". In the case of stub types, this usually means to keep any associated template but to link it with the parent category rather than the category under discussion. In contexts such as Proposals, creating an upmerged template means a stub template, only, feeding into a more general stub type.

Upscope

A portmanteau of upmerge and rescope. See rescope.

User

In the simplest term - anyone that uses Diyinfo.

Userbox

A small box which is stored in the template space, and which includes a small piece of information about a user (such as "This user likes cheese"). Many users use userboxes on their user page, although some look down upon it.

Userfy

Userfication is the process by which material posted in a Diyinfo article, project, or template space is moved into the user space: into a user page or subpage. A common case is where an inexperienced user who is not a notable person has created an article about himself/herself. The article would be deleted after userfying; moving its content to a user page.

User page

A personal page for Diyinfoians. Most people use their pages to introduce themselves and to keep various personal notes and lists. They are also used by Diyinfoians to communicate with each other via the user talk pages. User pages are not generated automatically by the process of Registration.

[edit] V

Vandal

One who engages in significant amounts of vandalism.

Vandalbot

Some kind of bot being used for vandalism or spamming. Recognizable by the fact that one or a few IP-addresses make many similar clearly vandalist edits in a short time. In the worst cases these have created or vandalized hundreds of pages in a timespan of only minutes.

Vandalism

Deliberate defacement of Wikipedia pages. This can be by deleting text or writing nonsense, bad language, et cetera. The term is sometimes improperly used to discredit the views of an opponent in edit wars.

VandalProof

A tool for finding and removing vandalism.

Village pump

The main community forum of Diyinfo, where proposals, policy changes, technical problems and other internals are announced and discussed in front of a wider audience than a topic-specific page would have.

VP

Shorthand for Village pump or for VandalProof.

[edit] W

Watchlist

A set of pages selected by the user, who can then click on My watchlist to see recent changes to those pages.

Wheel war

A dispute between Diyinfo administrators who use the privileges of administrators (such as blocking) as weapons in the "war".

Wikibreak

Also used: Wikivacation.

When a Diyinfoian takes a break from Diyinfo.

WikiFairy

Also used: Wiki faerie.

It is the slang term for a wiki editor who beautifies wiki entries by organizing messy articles, and adding style, color and graphics. The efforts of WikiFairies are normally welcome, though they do not necessarily create new articles or affect the substantive content of the articles they edit. WikiFairies are considered to be basically friendly, like WikiGnomes.

Wikify

To format using Wiki markup (as opposed to plain text or HTML) and add internal links to material, incorporating it into the whole of Wikipedia. Noun: Wikification; gerund: wikifying. Sometimes shortened to wfy.

WikiGnome

A Diyinfoian who makes minor, helpful edits without clamoring for attention or praise for what they did.

Wikilawyering

Attempting to inappropriately rely on technicalities in a legalistic manner with respect to Policies or Arbitration.

Wikilink

A link to another Diyinfo page, as opposed to an external link.

Wiki markup

Also used: wiki text, wikitext.

Code like HTML, but simplified and more convenient, for example '''bold''' instead of <b>bold</b>. It is the source code stored in the database and shown in the edit box. Searching by the Diyinfo software is done in the wikitext, as opposed to searching by external major search engines, which is done in the resulting text. The size of a page is the size of the wikitext.

WikiOgre

A Wikipedian who makes large edits from time to time but generally keeps to WikiGnomery.

Wikiportal

Pages intended to be the main pages for Diyinfoians interested in a specific area of knowledge, helping both to find the information on the specific topic and to develop articles connected with it.

WikiProject

An active group of Diyinfo editors working together to improve a specific group of articles, usually those on one or more related topics. This often involves an attempt to standardize the content and Style of the articles using an agreed standard format.

Wikiquette

The Diyinfo etiquette of working with others on Diyinfo.

Wikislap

Providing someone with the URL of a Diyinfo article when they express a lack of knowledge about a particular topic.

Wikispace

The Diyinfo namespace.

Wikispam

Articles or sections created to promote a product or other meme. Spamming can also include adding extraneous or irrelevant links to promote an outside site, particularly for commercial purposes.

Wikistress

Personal stress or tension induced by editing Diyinfo, or more often by being involved in minor conflict with another editor.

Wolf vote

A vote on Diyinfo which seems to be cast just to go against the flow. E.g., on RfA, this can typically be a vote such as "Oppose because x, y, and z are supporting." The opposite is called a "sheep vote".

[edit] X

XNR

Also used: CNR

Acronym for Cross-namespace redirects. Used mainly at Redirects for discussion to emphasize for deletion.

[edit] ?

ø

The term ø is sometimes used in edit summaries to indicate a null edit.

!=

"Is not equal to". This usage comes from the relational operator in such languages as C.

!vote

"Not-vote" (the exclamation mark means 'not' in many programming languages). Something that looks like a vote but should not be considered a vote. The term !vote is somewhat tongue-in-cheek.